The "FrankenStang gets a makeover" progress thread.

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I have an authentic saleen wing on mine and I found that even the GT third brake light doesn't fit perfectly. I had the guy doing my body work do a little bit to massage it in better.
 
Frankie, thats what i was talking about in the other thread... i had a hard time tracking down a GT light to fit my saleen wing. My stock LX light is WAY too small to fit in there. I just happened to find one at the junkyard today.

Make sure it looks like this one....

View attachment 378547

Sweet, I don't remember seeing any GTs in the junkyard last time we were there.
 
Forgot to bring my camera over to her place, today. I suck. :( Didn't get the first coat fully finished, but all of the seams, trim, front bumper fascia, and first half of the wing are done. (Painting the underside of the wing, first, then mounting it and doing the top half.)

I'm pretty impressed by how much better the Rustoleum goes on when it's thinned out a bit. It spreads a LOT easier/farther, doesn't feel all goopy, doesn't bubble up on the surface anymore at all, the finish levels out surprisingly quick and more completely (hides stroke marks), and it dries a LOT faster - it was pretty well skinned over in about two hours, whereas the undiluted variant I used before took a DAY to dry to touch and about two full WEEKS to fully cure. Only downside is that, being so much thinner, it gets runs a lot more easily, so now I have to go the opposite route that I previously did and try to use as LITTLE as possible to avoid gunking the finish, whereas I used to have to slather the crap on there WAY thick when undiluted, or the surface would get sort of tacky/goopy and leave textured tracks with every roll. I imagine I'll probably still have almost 1/2 a gallon of this stuff left by the time the car's finished, so I just might get a little nutty and sand my Notch down to re-do it a bit more proper with this stuff, later.

I still had 3/4 of a gallon left after doing my Notch (and my bathroom floor, heh), so I just dumped 16 oz of mineral spirits into the remaining amount, stirred 'er up thoroughly, and started hitting all the hard-to-reach stuff - things I figured I *might* be able to do with a roller, but might as well brush on, first, to avoid any missed spots that would stick out, later on. I could have probably rolled on the first coat tonight, but Frankie still has those crappy early work hours and doesn't believe my theory that coffee = liquid sleep. :D Thus, it'll get the first full coat either Friday night or Saturday morning, and the second coat (assuming that it dries well enough) later that night. Re-assembly of trim/lights and such should be Sunday evening, followed by many, many pretty pictures.

I really, really wish we could afford the time/labor to do the roof up right. That's going to be the one MAJOR eyesore of the whole paintjob, I know, because for whatever reason, it's been Bondo'ed to death wayyy in the past (hailstone damage, perhaps?) and not only the blue paintjob but the (I think) original brown paint has never properly adhered to the surface. It's all kinds of crazy cracked and flaked up there. Nothing short of taking some hardcore stripper and bringing it all the way down to bare metal for a repaint will ever set that thing right, I imagine. :( Oh well, guess we'll see how this iteration turns out, and then we can try to tackle that deal later in Autumn when it's not so friggin' hot out. (116* today, wheeeee!)

Oh, and I have black nostrils now from the paint fumes/overspray when I was primering the wing tonight. Yeah, that's right. I'm so goth, my boogers are black! :nice: (Even when I wore a mask the other day when primering the whole car, I still somehow wound up with gray boogers. :shrug: )
 
I'm really excited about how well it's turning out. I always felt this car should be black. (It's always been MY car but my Ex wouldn't "let" me choose the color. :rolleyes:) I'll take some cellphone pics when I get off work but, I'll also remind Dave to bring his camera over to take better pics. :D

I sneezed out some nice black boogies myself last night. :lol: The night of the primering, I was covered in primer. My hair, arms, and face. I looked like a really hairy 80 year old. :rlaugh: